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  1. Rhapsody in Black

    George Gershwin was arguably the greatest American composer of the early 20th century, if not all time, in the view of many. He died in 1937 of a glioblastoma that produced brain herniation. But suppose for whatever reason it was discovered much earlier (say, 1935) and treated as best as...

  2. Night Probe = implausible ?

    In his 1981 action novel Night Probe, Clive Cussler posits that a so-called North American Treaty had been negotiated between Great Britain and the US in 1914, whereby, for $1 billion US (value today ~$185B), Great Britain sold Canada to the US. There were said to be two copies of the treaty...

  3. AHC: make 1919 even more...interesting

    1919 was, arguably, the epitome of the curse "may you live in interesting times". Starting with the passing of Theodore Roosevelt in early January, followed soon after by the molasses tank disaster in Boston, and other events like race riots (Chicago; Washington; rural Arkansas), the Red Scare...

  4. Twofold: baroque pop and the mods

    What if the genre baroque pop (Wikipedia: "a fusion genre that combines rock music with particular elements of classical music.") became the dominant form of rock, starting sometime about the mid-1960s? And take it one step further: suppose baroque pop were irreversibly linked with the mods? How...

  5. Another check/balance in the US Constitution: Supreme Court recall

    Supreme Court rulings seem to be final, unless the makeup of the court changes and a ruling is overturned, which I believe is infrequent at most. However, suppose Madison et. al. decided to put in place a measure that would make the Supreme Court accountable to the other two branches on a more...

  6. Power, too, becomes cheap and clean

    (Thanks to Sting for that line.) I recall reading a short biography of Charles Steinmetz when I was a kid, in which Steinmetz was quoted as predicting that at some point in the future (I believe the quote was from the late Ragtime Era), electricity would be so easy and cheap to generate that it...

  7. Three very interesting meetings

    H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken was a journalist, editor, and essayist whose career essentially spanned the first half of the twentieth century. He was best known for his long-time tenure with the Baltimore Sun, as well as for editing/publishing the magazine Smart Set, in collaboration with...

  8. DBWI AHC: Woodrow Wilson as a presidential nominee

    The challenge is this: have Woodrow Wilson become a (presumably Democrat) presidential nominee. ABSTRACT: Woodrow Wilson (1856-1929) was one of only two Americans to serve as governor of two different states, governing NJ from 1911 to 1913 and MD from 1916 to 1924. Sam Houston was the other...

  9. DBWI: Careers in entertainment instead of academia

    I'm using a loose interpretation of the phrase "entertainer" to say the least: let's establish that immediately. That said, here are a handful to get things going. William Claude Dukenfield, Ph. D., professor of British literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Know for his mordant...

  10. Joseph Ruggles Wilson accepts a teaching position in the north

    NOTE: the actual POD takes place in the 19th century, yet the ramifications become manifest in the 20th century. That's why I put this here. However, if a moderator sees fit to move this to pre-1900, fine by me. To me it was a call that could go either way. Anyhow... Joseph Ruggles Wilson...

  11. Pittsburgh without steel?

    Suppose, for whatever reason(s), the city at the confluence of the Monongehela and Allegheny Rivers never became the nexus of the iron and steel industry in the US. Would Pittsburgh have become a major city nonetheless, with an economy based on (say) glass, coal, refining, or some other...

  12. A Real Cowboy in Washington

    William F. Cody, a/k/a Buffalo Bill, was a consummate showman and a significantly progressive thinker in the late 1890s. Suppose he had been persuaded to run for the US Senate from, say, Colorado or Wyoming in, say, 1898? With the high esteem in which he was held it seems unlikely that either...

  13. AHC: make Valentine's Day as widely observed as, say, Arbor Day or St. Swithin's Day

    Pretty much what the title says: figure out how 14 February can become no more than an exceedingly minor observation.

  14. 19th Century inventions that could have happened sooner

    I'm speaking of innovations for which all the ingredients were there but somehow it took a while to put them all together. Here are two examples: The phonograph. Edison's innovation was strictly mechanical. Machining techniques in the 1840s and 1850s were sufficiently advanced to permit...

  15. Earliest broadcast commercial radio?

    Many / most sources credit Westinghouse's experimental station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, as the first commercial radio station, taking to the air in November 1920 (although some claim primacy for WJR in Detroit). I recall reading years ago about experimental voice and music broadcasts as early as...

  16. DBWI AHC: Woodrow Wilson as president?

    Woodrow Wilson (1856-1930) President, Princeton University, 1902-1911 Governor, New Jersey, 1911-1914 President, Johns Hopkins University, 1914-1916 Governor of Maryland, 1916-1924 President emeritus, John Hopkins University, 1924-1929 Only two men have ever served as governors of two different...

  17. Realistic scenarios for Taft not to run in 1912

    On 8 March in a program on CNN documenting the 1912 election, H. W Brands said unequivocally that ifTR and Wilson went head-to-head in 1912, Tr would win. Definitely lends credibility to a popular thesis here, and made me wonder how this might realistically happen. To wit: 1. The most...

  18. Simmons retains control of the Klan

    William J. Simmons of Atlanta revived the Ku Klux Klan in 1915, shortly after the premier of D. W. Griffith's movie Birth of a Nation. However, despite Simmons' recruiting efforts, attempts at pageantry and the like, the revived KKK remained a small-time operation in and around Atlanta until he...

  19. "Friends" pre-boot

    It's been 25 years since the iconic series debuted on NBC. That sort of led me to wonder what the cast might have been had the series come about in, say, 1980 or so. Those were the days when TOM HANKS was new (remember "Bosom Buddies "?). Maybe Hanks as Chandler Bing? Those were also big days...

  20. Holidays / celebrations in *America* without the Revolution

    Let's assume that however it came about, a revolution was avoided and a negotiated settlement between Great Britain and the North American colonies came about: use The Two Georges as a suggested prototype, if you like. What would the calendar include as far as holidays, celebrations, and...
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